What the IEU’s SIA application means for you: next steps in the fight for fair bargaining
It’s official. The IEU has lodged a Single Interest Authorisation (SIA) application with the Fair Work Commission (FWC) covering staff at 24 Victorian Catholic employer groups.
This is a huge step forward in our campaign for fair bargaining rights, and a clear message to Catholic employers: we’re done waiting.
For too long, Victorian Catholic school staff have been denied the same bargaining rights other education staff in Australia already have. Once an SIA is granted, staff will gain access to these rights, critical to achieving productive negotiations and a fair outcome.
This is a big moment, but it’s not the finish line.
What happens next
If employers consent to our SIA application, the process is straightforward. Once the FWC has checked that our application meets basic requirements, precedent suggests an SIA would be granted in a matter of weeks. This will fast track the making of the next agreement so that staff can benefit to improvements to pay and conditions as early as possible in 2026.
If employers fail to consent, they will be responsible for prolonging this process, because the FWC will be unable to grant an SIA until the expiry of our current Agreements on 31 December. The FWC must also be satisfied of additional requirements, including verifying that the threshold of majority support has been met at each employer named in the application. Employers could even make other legal objections to the application, which may delay the granting of an SIA into 2026.
Who’s not in yet and why your support matters
The employers named in our application are just the first wave. We will add the rest of the employers as soon as we can verify majority support across their workforces. That means every Statement of Signature made from now on matters more than ever, because each one brings us closer to including every employer in the SIA application.
These are the employer groups not yet included: Melbourne Archdiocese Catholic Schools (MACS), Catholic Education Sandhurst (CESL), Diocese of Ballarat Catholic Education (DOBCEL), Catholic College of Sale, St Kevin’s College, St Bede’s College, Loreto Mandeville Hall Toorak, Siena College, and MacKillop Family Services.
Many individual schools within these groups have already achieved majority support, but what’s needed is a majority across the employer group as a whole.
So every Statement is vital. If your school hasn’t reached majority, now is the time to get there. And if you’re already across the line, keep building momentum to help your colleagues in other schools get there too.
One agreement, one campaign
The IEU is seeking an SIA because we don’t want to carve up Catholic education into separate agreements. A SIA ensures negotiation of a unified, multi-employer agreement covering every Catholic school in Victoria, delivering a fair, consistent outcome for staff. The VCEA’s recent actions to force a premature vote face rejection by staff, putting a unified agreement at risk. By consenting to an SIA, the VCEA can now show it is serious about including every single school in the next Agreement.
No more games from the VCEA
The VCEA’s so-called “offer” was never a negotiated outcome, and their “survey” won’t change that.
If the employers are serious about avoiding delay, they can act today to:
Listen to staff in Catholic education and consent to bargaining under an SIA.
Pay a 7% increase at the start of 2026 and deliver the $1,500 bonus before Christmas as they promise, as an interim measure while bargaining takes place.
Meet with us to discuss a single interest agreement that will achieve the wage increases, workload relief and wellbeing measures that staff deserve.
The IEU has written to the VCEA with these three asks and we are waiting for their response.
Where to from here
This application proves what we can achieve together. Thousands of Catholic staff have already taken the first step to win real bargaining rights, and now we need to finish the job.
We need a majority of staff in every single Catholic employer group to ensure all schools are part of the fight for fair pay and conditions.
So what can you do?
Sign the Statement of Support if you haven’t already.
Talk to your colleagues - every Statement strengthens our case.
Keep the pressure on employers to consent to bargaining now.
Together, we’ve built something historic. Now let’s finish the job.